The following
Links for Learners resource is offered to those who would like to
use St. Anthony Messenger in an educational setting or for
further study at home. This resource is prepared with high school
students in mind, but can be adapted for other age groups. We will
feature one article for further study each month. Back issues, beginning
in May 1997, contain this resource. Up until December 1998 it was
called a teacher's guide or classroom resource. Teachers with access
to computer labs should encourage students to access the article directly
online. Students have our permission to print out a copy of the article
for classroom use. We encourage you to subscribe to the print edition
of St. Anthony Messenger, where you will see all of the graphics,
and more articles that you might find useful on a variety of topics.
Please let us know how we can improve this service by sending feedback
to StAnthony@franciscanmedia.org.

Parents will also
find this material useful in initiating discussion around the
dinner table, in home study, at family activities or as preparation
for parent/teacher meetings.

Understanding Basic
Terms in This Months Article

Look for these key
words and terms as you read the article. Definitions or explanations
can be researched from the article itself, or from the resource
materials cited throughout the Links for Learners.

Interethnic strife

Reconciliation

Beatitudes

Serbs

Croats

Forgiveness

Sarajevo

Healing

Muslims

Bosnia

Hope

Adoration (of Blessed Sacrament)

Post-war Rebuilding

This month's article
describes non-denominational efforts to provide supplies and labor
for rebuilding homes torn apart by recent battles in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Christians and non-Christians alike donate building materials and
give up vacation time to work shoulder to shoulder with Bosnian
families as they put their lives back together.

The long-festering
interethnic civil strife between Bosnians and Croatians, on the
one hand, and Serbians on the other resulted in the destruction
of homes and country sides as well as personal devastation and ethnic
cleansing reminiscent of the Holocaust of World War II. Much has
been written on the fighting in the Balkans. For a printed history,
see Kosovo: A Short History, Noel Malcolm, New York University
Press, New York, 1998.

Rebuilding Bosnian
homes and lives is a daunting task that will take many years. The
efforts of the volunteers in St.
David's Relief Organization exemplify Christian outreach to
those in need. In fact, the Franciscan
Order, with strong roots in nearby Medjugorje,
represented a critical contingent within the relief efforts. Medjugorje,
in southern Bosnia,
is the site where, since 1981, Mary is said to appear daily. Franciscans
in Bosnia contains information on the Franciscan presence in
the region.

Bosnians reject suggestions
that they leave their homelands and immigrate to more peaceful areas.
As the article says, "the land and the Church are their lives."
Despite the tragedies that have driven pain deep into their hearts,
the Bosnian people still live in hope. In discussing their situation,
you may want to compare it to situations and events that pushed
other peoples to turn away from their homes and immigrate to other
lands. The Potato
Famine in Ireland, for example, was a turning point for thousands
of Irish, whose hope directed them to leave Ireland for America.
What motivated them to immigrate?

The Healing Only
Forgiveness Can Bring

While the generous
efforts of countless volunteers certainly witness to the generosity
of Jesus himself, there can be no question that they are mostly
the efforts of outsiders who have not experienced the deep emotional
and physical wounds of hatred and war. A deep, abiding peace, a
restoration of community ties, will only occur through forgiveness
among the warring ethnic groups in Bosnia.

But how do you forgive
the person who destroyed your home, assaulted and killed your family
and drove you away from your roots? How do you forgive the Irish
Republican Army when they abduct and murder a mother of 10 because
she cradled a dying British soldier in her arms? How do you forgive
the parent who left you and went off to live a new life?

Developmental psychologist
Robert D. Enright, a professor at the University of Wisconsin,
has devoted the last 10+ years to the study of forgiveness.
His work led him to establish the International
Forgiveness Institute. Colleagues considered him almost
crazy because he gave up years of research and grant work
to take on the subject of forgiveness, a topic no one in psychology
had taken seriously before.

Now, however, Enright
can write that "people who are deeply and unjustly hurt by others
can heal emotionally by forgiving their offender."

In a first of its
kind national conference on forgiveness, held in 1995, psychiatrist
Richard Fitzgibbons stated that as a society our anger is completely
out of control. Road rage, student killings, family feuds, hate
radio, sports fights among players and fans alikeall are symptoms
of a deep-seated anger in our culture.

Psychiatrists and
psychologists are more and more in agreement that forgiving releases
the power that an offender otherwise has over us. We limit ourselves
emotionally, physically, developmentally when we refuse to forgive.

Enright admits that
forgiveness is extremely difficult. It's a process, not a single
step, and can easily take years to accomplish. He outlines five
steps in the healing process:

Face
up to the anger within us.

Recognize the source of our hurt.

Choose
to forgive.

Find
a new way to think about the individual who hurt us.

Try
on the shoes of our offender.

The International
Forgiveness Institute publishes a quarterly newsletter called "The
World of Forgiveness," which you may find helpful for ongoing discussion
on this topic.

From a spiritual perspective,
Christian forgiveness is, of course, rooted in Jesus. Forgiving
is how God chooses to deal with us. Jesus, in action and in parable,
preached forgiveness as the new way of life for a believer. The
older son in the parable of the prodigal son could not forgive his
younger brother. The crowd ready to stone to death the woman caught
in adultery could find no way to forgive until Jesus reminded them
of their own sinfulness.

Can we forgive? Talk
about the anger, the unjust wrongs, the pain you have received at
the hands of another. If you were the parent of a student wounded
or killed at Columbine
High School, could you forgive the shooters? One mother reflected
on those very questions in "Columbine's
Selfless Heroes." The author of this month's article refers
to a "self-killing forgiveness" as the solution to the bitterness
in Bosnia. Why is forgiveness self-killing? Can we achieve this
extraordinary level of love without first feeling the loving forgiveness
of Jesus himself?

Enright believes that
people forgive people. Institutions, nations, groups don't forgive
unless individuals first forgive. Where can we start to forgive?
What situations can we begin to heal with efforts at forgiveness?
For adults and parents, where can we demonstrate loving forgiveness
to our children?

Research Resources

Try accessing some
of these Internet sources for further reference. Be aware, however,
that some of these sites may charge for downloading articles contained
within the site’s archives.

The links contained within this resource guide are functional
at the time the page is posted. Over time, however, some of the links
may become ineffective.

These links are provided solely as a convenience to you
and not as an endorsement by St. Anthony Messenger Press/Franciscan
Communications of the contents on such third-party Web sites. St. Anthony
Messenger Press/Franciscan Communications is not responsible for the
content of linked third-party sites and does not make any representations
regarding the content or accuracy of materials on such third-party Web
sites. If you decide to access linked third-party Web sites, you do
so at your own risk.